Warehousing facilities are required by a lot of businesses, especially in uncertain times it becomes difficult for businesses to find proper solutions w.r.t to warehousing services. One such entity aspiring to solve the problems in warehousing services is SafeStorage.
Ramesh Madisetty, CEO & Co-Founder shares his perspectives on the demand for warehouses, opportunities and outlook. Edited Excerpts:
Q. How do SMEs leverage storage services, does this workout on rental models or subscription kind of business?
SafeStorage supports SME’s with technology-enabled warehouses. Below are few features we offer:
– Warehouse space with pay per use model (sft/pallets)
– Inventory (Maintain stock in and stock out)
– Logistics (last mile delivery)
– Capex (Fire controller, smoke detectors, CC Cameras, Pest control, warehouse insurance)
– Staff (Skilled and un-skilled)
– 24×7 Security
For businesses, the starting price is 600 rs for a Pallet (48”x40” size)
Q. Where’s the major demand coming from across the SME base?
Our warehouse are very much inside city and easily approachable
For E-Commerce we’ve on-demand stoage space and pay per use model (which don’t require hefty investments). For manufactures and distributors, the storage houses are closer to city center/hub, on demand staff (skilled and unskilled) and logistics.
Further, Geographically all major cities/metros especially Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai are also in demand and available.
From a business segment perspective, we serve e-commerce, retailers, product companies like Fujitsu general, mobile manufacturers like oppo, vivo etc, electrical and electronics appliances manufacturers, importers.
We are looking to be able to cater to the FMCG sector as well. Storage of FMCG industry goods requires certain licenses, documentation. The team is working to get all the approvals in place and hope to get it done soon.
Q. How’s the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on storage businesses?
Pandemic gave us a great opportunity to serve masses in critical times. Owing to the COVID-19 lockdown and ‘Work from Home’ scenario for a foreseeable future, self-storage facilities have seen a significant rise in demand; as people have moved out of their rented apartments back to their native places/hometowns. In such times, Self- Storage units come to their rescue, housing their valuable belongings while they give up their rented accommodations in their cities of work.
Given work from home option many individuals have stored their households with SafeStorage
Businesses – Restaurants, schools, offices..etc.. have approached SafeStorage for storage service to save rent, monthly maintenance while they are not operating business.
Even though the vaccine has come, and many people are back at work, most are still working from home because companies want their employees to be safe. Additionally, offices are opting for smaller offices to reduce their costs.
Q. How’s your business expansion and fundraising plan?
As far as business Business expansion is concerned, we would like to operate in 9 cities by end of 2021 and SafeStorage has target of touching 10 lakhs sft space. We are also looking to enter packers and movers business. Initially we had planned to convert our warehouse in Hoodi, Bengaluru into co-working spaces, if the demand for storage units went down. Fortunately, we are seeing our business picking up more than ever.
For the Fundraising plan: We are in discussion with multiple investment groups. We hope to get a fruitful result soon.
Q. What service can you embed in the storage business (like insurance, credit, transportation, etc.) or yet to evolve in such kind of model?
SafeStorage supports following services along with providing storage spaces:
– Staff (Skilled and un-skilled)
– Logistics (End to end solutions, last mile delivery)
– Insurance
– Capex (Racking system, Fork lifting vehicles..etc)
Our endeavour is to be a one stop shop solution for storage and packing needs in India.
